|
Georg Klemper Blog Entry |
|
July 14, 2023, 2:00:40 AM 7/14/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Car Wash/Free Draw Friday." This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Georg Klemper, father of Godfrey Klemper. He's a minor, posthumous character though his past actions played a big role in Klemper's character development. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Nothing much to say of his design other than he's supposed to look a bit haggard/worn from farm work. He got his first name from the oldest ancestor I was able to trace of my surname, a farmer born circa 1590 in Hesse, Germany. Since then though I've traced back a couple more generations and my oldest surname ancestor is Hans, circa 1545, though there's already a (posthumous) Hans in my story. TUMBLR EDIT: Georg's history is largely unknown to me, with him being a minor posthumous character, but I can easily guess what his early life was like, as his son Godfrey Klemper gives the answer. In the main story, a Nazi character draws up Klemper's family tree from his parents' names, Georg Klemper and Agnes Schwartz. He proclaims that Klemper hails from "a long, proud line of peasant farmers!" (Klemper is much less enthused about this than the genealogist.) In the Nazi Germany of the story, the peasant farmer is actually considered the ideal; just forget a moment about all the rich urban Nazis who never dug in the dirt once in their lives (wink-wink) and consider the concept of "Blood & Soil" (Blut und Boden), which idealizes, and rather romanticizes, the idea that to be a "true" German, whatever that is, is for your very heritage and ancestry to be tied to the earth you were born upon...at the risk of putting up a big old red flag, I think I rather understand and empathize with that basic concept, at least as far as my own heritage (or until recently, lack of heritage) goes. Without knowing where I came from, I felt I had nowhere to which I belonged, and was literally groundless, without my own culture to belong to. Incidentally, it turns out the ground of my surname is literally medieval/early modern farmland in Hessen (Hesse), Germany. But anyway. Another important aspect of Blood & Soil is that oh yeah, cities = BAD!, and what comes from cities?--JEWS!--so that aspect is an obvious load of BS that ruins the whole thing. (Like I said, there were plenty of urban Nazis, and I'm pretty sure there were rural Jews, and something they had in common was being born on German soil.) Back to Klemper. Why is Klemper's centuries-long ancestry of dirt-poor farmers considered so glamorous? Because, according to the Nazis, it makes him a good true German, an Aryan, and Klemper being a literal soldier peasant--he joined the Wehrmacht while underaged, following the loss of both parents--just sweetens the deal. He physically resembles the type, too--while of average height, and rather slender, still, he's fit, fair, blue eyed, and has Aryan features; the Nazis want to use him for propaganda, put his face on posters to recruit more soldiers. Klemper is weirded out by this idea--"My face!--why do I want to see my giant face always looking back at me from the side of a building like der Führer?--why does anyone want that!"--not to mention rather disgruntled, as at one time he was targeted for court-martial--and possible execution--following his rumored involvement with a Jewish partisan...a MALE Jewish partisan. So, yeah...that's definitely not the Nazi ideal. Klemper privately complains to Lt. Ratdog, his latest partner, how awfully convenient it is for the army to overlook this detail when it suits them, while still making sure he's punished for it (an appeal to the SS prevents his court-martial and even lets him keep his military position, yet with a permanent demotion attached). I think they do end up making a poster out of him, but it's not really his choice; he's just cannon fodder being used to recruit more cannon fodder. Him having the ideal Aryan face and family background is what counts the most. Ratdog, meanwhile, deliberately conceals his own ancestry through much of the story. It's not just the...hinkiness...of his exact family ties that he desires to hide (see his sister Edelgard's entry for the icky details), but the fact that his ancestry is considered the exact opposite of the current ideal, too. Ratdog is a Herzog, duke, and like Klemper, his family line extends back hundreds of years in eastern Prussian Germany. As he points out after Klemper digs up this info, Klemper's own ancestors might very well have once toiled the land on the same estate as Ratdog's ancestors. The normally rather völkisch Klemper shows a rare moment of broadmindedness in admitting that he doesn't care--he and Ratdog aren't their ancestors, what was done so far in the past, by people they didn't even know, isn't their burden to bear. Blood being something you can never fully escape, however, seems to be a recurring theme in this story. Ratdog's past comes back to haunt him, and Klemper's does as well, in various ways. The main reason Klemper leaves his old family farm to join the Heer is because he's been left groundless: His father has been dead for a few years, his mother has just passed away after an extended illness, and while Klemper--merely thirteen years old--is busy struggling to dig her grave in the woods next to his father's grave, a rogue Wehrmacht unit ransacks and burns down his family farmhouse. Klemper returns to find it in flames, and lingers nearby until only the stone foundations and cellar are left in the smoldering ruins. He already cried over his mother and father; staring at his vanished home, he has no more grief left, just numbness. He'd taken his father's old rifle with him, so the rogue unit didn't get hold of that; he takes the Stahlhelm and ID papers off a dying soldier he passes (the soldier asks Klemper to kill him, and Klemper, rather used to death already, obliges, then doctors the papers the best he can), and pauses to listen to a wandering recruiter trying to convince a handful of his fellow country dwellers to enlist. Although the recruiter gives the "sixteen-year-old" Klemper in his oversized stolen Stahlhelm with his oversized rifle a skeptical look, he ignores the hinkiness of his ID papers, and Klemper is handed a new (oversized) helmet and (oversized) rifle and sent off to his new unit to get firsthand training. Klemper faces lots of unpleasant incidents being victimized by older men, as he often finds himself drawn to them, yet is gullible and easily taken advantage of. It's a statistical fact that a victim faces greatly increased chances of becoming a victim again, and this is sadly so in Klemper's case. For him, as it turns out, his initial and primary victimizer is his own father Georg. Although Georg is depicted as utterly despicable so far in Klemper's recounting of this incident to Elias Baswitz (the aforementioned Jewish partisan) in an adult WIP of mine, the story is far more complicated, as such things tend to be. Klemper's own actions, and his words to Ratdog later in the story, illustrate this; although he still harbors a deep well of trauma, anger, and hate for his father, on the other hand, he obviously still loves him as well, and feels extreme remorse and guilt over his death. When Ratdog expresses confusion over him honoring his dead father at his grave, Klemper acts similarly perplexed by his mixed feelings, but shrugs and offers the best explanation he can: "He's my Vater and he's blood. What am I supposed to feel?" The truth is that Klemper's father wasn't always an a-hole, and his own circumstances, so similar to Klemper's, contributed to his personality and actions. The Klempers, and pretty much everyone else in their area, are of a long line of farmer peasants, with all that that entails--namely, a difficult struggle of a life. I don't think Georg fought in the Great War as he was too busy keeping the farm running, though he marries Agnes and their son Godfrey is born into a country that's still reeling and struggling to survive, itself. Based on Klemper's age when he meets Ratdog, this is roughly the early Twenties, though Georg never joins the Nazi Party--out here near the literal frontier, so close to the border that Georg sometimes hires itinerant Poles to help work his land (this is how young Godfrey learns to speak Polish), such concepts as voting and political parties are a virtually unknown concept; by the time news reaches them of the Führer's rise to power, it's old news, and it really doesn't affect them much. This isn't to say that Georg would necessarily disagree with Nazi ideals. Though I'm not sure about Agnes's beliefs, Georg and others way out here follow an odd mishmash of pagan, völkisch, and Christian beliefs, many of which would be well in line with what the Nazis teach; he passes this on to Godfrey, who both embraces yet rather struggles with this worldview as a young adult later on, when he comes into contact with differing peoples of differing beliefs. BUT, similar worldview aside, Georg doesn't care about the Nazis either way because he has his farm to think about. He's not culturally enlightened by any means--he's likely racist in his own ways--but he doesn't dwell on it, because you can't be picky about race when you need the assistance of Slavs to keep your farm running. As for Jews, I don't think they ever even cross Georg's mind. The Klempers and their neighbors live in their own small world largely cut off from the drama of the Third Reich; this is the world that ends up so heavily romanticized, and turned into propaganda, by the Nazis, yet their depiction of it is often far from the truth. There's no glamor in the farmer peasant life. Just lots of struggle, hardship, and barely getting by. Farm life is complicated in its simplicity. Everything boils down to routine and repetition. You keep the farm running, which means keeping workers. And when you haven't much money to pay workers, you make your own. Thus Agnes: The role of the farm wife is to have children. A lot of them. The reason that line of farmer peasants has done so well in surviving for so long, despite the difficult circumstances, is that the women have large broods of kids to help keep things running and to keep the line going. Even girls are more useful than not--after all, they can be married off, sealing ties between families, creating the next generation. Sons are preferred, but daughters will do. I don't yet know the circumstances of Georg's and Agnes's marriage, though I do know they genuinely care for each other, while the union is primarily for utilitarian purposes. Out here, you don't marry for love, though it helps. I think Agnes cares more for Georg than he cares for her, BUT, based on the fact that he remains married to her and remains faithful, it might simply be that he conceals his emotions better. Because Agnes proves not to be as useful a wife as hoped. It isn't that she isn't a devoted, hard worker--she is. She more than carries her weight, working her fingers to the bone to keep the farm going and to care for her husband. She's a good faithful wife. Yet she's not much of a mother--the primary and most important role she's supposed to fulfill. No matter how hard the two of them try, they remain childless for quite a while. Agnes starts to despair, and Georg grows frustrated; when finally, it happens--Agnes becomes pregnant. She wishes to be careful, to protect this precious, much-needed life as much as she can, but farm work beckons as always, and she keeps at it as long as she's physically able, going into labor while out in the field one day. Georg hurries off to fetch the nearest midwife--no doctors out here--though Agnes has already done most of the work by the time they return, and Godfrey is born not long after. Godfrey is a puny, colicky, sickly seeming baby, but he survives, and grows stronger (though he never does get chubby or plump out much), and by the time he leaves toddlerhood is already helping out with chores. (Same as these folk having no time for politics, they have no time for childhood, either.) Agnes would love to dote on him, but there's no space for spoiling a child on the farm, so she settles for being his comfort, always smiling at him and giving his face a gentle little touch before continuing with her work, and singing him lullabies and telling him the old folk legends before bed; she also often gives him a little bit of her portions of the day's meals, because he's a growing child and she reasons he needs it more. Georg, meanwhile, isn't an affectionate type--more often than not, he's giving Godfrey a light cuff upside the head to wake him or remind him to get back to work (the boy is easily distracted). He always speaks sternly, always orders him to see to his chores or get moving or quit dawdling. He's not violent or overly abusive, though, and even the head-cuffing is restrained--meant to startle Godfrey into compliance rather than frighten or hurt him--and once in a while, when the child works especially hard or the day is especially productive, he mutters, "Gute Arbeit" (good work) and even briefly ruffles the top of Godfrey's head before they go back home. It isn't much, but to little Godfrey it's the world. He does everything he can to make his parents happy and proud of him. It ends up not being enough, however. Agnes never has any more children, meaning Georg needs to hire more workers, meaning he needs to spend money or trade resources. The strain of this wears more on the little family as time goes on, and Georg handles it poorest of all. He grows perpetually frustrated and disgruntled at how little their efforts pay off, and takes this out on both Agnes (for not giving him any more children to work the farm) and Godfrey (for being a rather disappointing boy). The brief days of the toiling but somewhat happy family are past, and more often than not, Georg can be found snapping angrily at his wife or cuffing his son a bit harder than he used to. He doesn't do any of this out of spite--he's just never been taught any more effective ways to handle his emotions. The truth is he's struggling to keep it together just as much as the others are, and he too feels ashamed to not be the self-sufficient, successful provider he's supposed to be. Despite these setbacks, the three of them do still get along and work together the best they can, and Georg's heart is still in the right place...until after one especially stressful day, one of his hired workers offers him a bottle of beer to "help take the edge off." Georg refrains at first--he rather looks down on the pastime of drinking, which he considers a waste of time and resources. Still, the worker jiggles the bottle at him and cajoles, and he really does feel like he needs a break after so much hard work--a lifetime of it--plus he's so tired and thirsty; he takes the bottle and takes a reluctant sip. Then a swig. He can't help it, his throat is so dry he quickly downs the whole thing. His worker laughs a little and offers him another but this time he refuses and heads home, he doesn't want to overdo it. He's already buzzed, however--without really understanding or knowing it--and has to admit deep down that the drink did take the edge off. He doesn't feel so short tempered with Agnes and Godfrey when he gets home, and the evening is actually a somewhat pleasant one, the first in a long time. Well...moderation is a tricky thing. And Georg soon enough learns that. You don't become an addict overnight; it's a gradual process--Godfrey learns this much later on with methamphetamine, and Georg learns it now with drinking. He never gets into hard liquor, just sticks to beer--that in itself helps trick him into thinking it's not so bad--but it's too easy to progress from buzzed to drunk...and in stark contrast to being buzzed mellowing him out a little, when it comes to being drunk, Georg is a mean one. After a few beers he finds himself simmering with resentment over his lot in life; a few beers more than that, say just the right (wrong) words, and his fists start flying. He never intends to get angry-drunk, he longs to simply stay with that slightly drunk relaxed feeling, yet he can just almost never limit himself to one bottle, he keeps hoping he can linger with that warm hazy feeling. You'd think if one bottle makes you feel good, surely another would make you feel twice as such? But that's not the way it works for Georg, who's had so much rage and despair lurking under the surface before now. The bottle loosens him up and as a result, all THAT comes surging out. And Agnes and Godfrey are on the receiving end. Wife and son are confused at first by this growing change in his behavior; they aren't familiar with the effects of alcohol, either. But they catch on. The bottle is what turns the normally stern but moderate Georg into a raging brute, and anything can set him off. The first time he smacks Agnes across the face, it's a shock, but it quickly becomes routine. Then, Godfrey as well. And then not just smacks, but beatings. He doesn't bother even trying to hide the effects of the blows--he'll hit them in the face as readily as in the ribs--because most of their interactions are with the itinerant Poles who don't even speak the same language, and a few visits with distant neighbors who are unlikely to do anything. It's nobody else's business to get involved. These outside parties do cast vaguely sympathetic glances at the battered pair--on one occasion, an older Roma woman who stops by to trade outright glares malevolently at Georg the entire time--yet that's the extent of their involvement, and Agnes and Godfrey don't expect them to step in, anyway. They simply put up with this situation for a few years--just another hardship of country life--Agnes trying to explain to their increasingly discouraged son that this isn't really his beloved father, Georg is still in there somewhere--the Georg who would cuff him a little but only when necessary, and would tell him good work--it's just that der Flaschendämon, the bottle demon, has hold of him, and he can't get free. Indeed, Godfrey catches glimpses of the old Georg when he's not drunk--Georg isn't the apologetic type, but he does feel extreme guilt when he's sober, and keeps wanting to stop drinking, but doesn't know how--and the more time goes by, the fewer are the times when he's sober. He even starts drinking early in the day and works the fields while drunk, nearly getting into accidents a few times--Agnes covers for these incidents and silently patches him up when he hurts himself--and arguing with visitors until the Klempers are increasingly isolated from their handful of distant neighbors, and depend almost entirely on the wandering workers. Things get worse--Georg drinks harder--the sorry situation feeds off itself. Without any of them knowing it, everything starts to come to a head. A neighbor here and there still bothers to do business with Georg when necessary. The men from one family stop by now and then to help work the land. They have a young son, around Godfrey's age, named Rolf. Godfrey and Rolf don't get to interact much--they're also busy working--but one day they manage to find a few moments to take a break and sit side by side under the trees at the edge of the field, gazing out into the sunlight. Rolf peers shyly at Godfrey, and smiles. Godfrey thinks his green eyes are the most beautiful eyes in the world, and though it confuses him, he kisses him. He worries just briefly that he'll scare Rolf off...but Rolf smiles back at him even wider, and even grasps his hand. Godfrey hasn't had many occasions for smiles or happiness or love in his short life, but his heart thumps, and he tentatively smiles back. He'll remember this moment like it only just happened until the day he dies. Georg is out in the field with the other few men left since it's starting to get late. And yes, although still toiling hard, he's been drinking most of the day, slowly but steadily growing more and more sullen and ill tempered. The others are avoiding him by now, knowing he'd likely deck them for no reason; they're too busy chatting with each other a bit to notice what Georg notices. What Georg notices, when he stops plowing for a moment to catch his breath and wipe his brow, is Godfrey sitting with Rolf near the edge of the field, and he feels a twinge of anger, ready to yell at him to get back to work--when Godfrey leans toward the other boy and kisses him. The blood drains from Georg's face and his lungs feel like they're sucked inside-out. Everything else in his field of vision, the other workers, the sky, the field itself, goes black as his sight shrinks to a dot, like looking down a tunnel with Godfrey at the other end. All he sees is his son kissing another boy. A lifetime, two lifetimes, centuries of hardened farm life and rural teachings pounded into him that this is wrong, this is awful, this is not what boys are meant for, yet here's his son, his ONLY son on whom the farm and family line depends, doing this, going against nature and country ideals and Gott Himself--all of this suddenly comes roaring up into Georg's chest, and his vision literally goes red as blood fills his eyes and his own heart pounds up into his throat, the thudding and ringing filling his ears. His fingernails gouge into the plow handle before he doesn't merely let it fall, he slams it down at the ground, whirls so hard he twists his ankle yet doesn't feel the sting, and yells at the top of his lungs, "GODFREY!!" Godfrey and the other boy--Georg doesn't know his name, doesn't care--both turn to look at him, freezing, eyes going wide. Georg starts storming across the field, making a beeline for them. He's never seen such fear and dread on his son's face before, not even before giving him a walloping, and the tiniest, tiniest voice in the last sober bit in the back of his brain says don't do this, but it's promptly screamed down and drowned out by rage. He half-expects the boys to go running as boys tend to do, but Godfrey's always been good and obedient, has never questioned his authority even once, has always done everything Georg told him to do. These are all things that should make him take pause, yet they just enrage him even more--his son, HIS son, should never act this way, and he grits his teeth and clenches his fists hard enough to draw blood as he nears the two. "YOU! Go on home!" he yells at the green-eyed boy--he doesn't care about him whatsoever, he's not his kid to discipline--and the boy hastily clambers down from the tree root he's seated on and goes running off to the other men still in the field; Georg pays no attention to how they stopped working the moment he screamed his son's name, nor how they gather their equipment and bustle off toward the barn, pulling the boy along with them although he reluctantly looks back at Godfrey. Godfrey has eyes for only his father--Georg snarls when he reaches out and grabs him by the wrist, yanking him out into the open so abruptly that Godfrey yelps and stumbles. He ducks his head, obviously expecting a blow, yet Georg turns and hauls Godfrey along after him as he stalks back to the farmhouse. "Schwuchtel!" Georg hisses, fingers digging into Godfrey's wrist, "Slacking off doing THAT? You like that so much? That's what you learned? How about I teach you some more, then...?" He drags Godfrey into the house, holding off until they're inside before smacking him across the face, hard. Godfrey lets out a pained noise but doesn't yell. He does cry out at the second, even harder blow, however, and Agnes hurries into the room--she's carrying a bottle of beer, having expected Georg to give his customary demand upon entering the house, and so is startled to find him hitting Godfrey instead. He yanks the bottle out of her hand even as he hits Godfrey a third time, takes a deep swig, feels even more enraged--he punches this time, knocking Godfrey down, then lands a sharp kick. Agnes finally tries to intervene, but he snarls and gives her such an infuriated glare, fist raised, that she cowers back--like Godfrey, she's good and obedient, she never fights back. And even as Georg grabs his son's arm again and yanks him back up onto his feet, his lip bleeding and his eye swelling and tears brimming, Godfrey doesn't protest, doesn't even call for his mother to protect him; Georg turns and heads for the stairs, dragging Godfrey after him as he clumsily ascends and then pulls him down the narrow hallway. He reaches Godfrey's small bedroom, tears open the door, hurls Godfrey inside so he hits his bed, hard. Godfrey gasps and blinks up at him, eyes wide and wet. Georg grinds his teeth so hard it should hurt, though he doesn't feel it, doesn't feel the swelling in his ankle or in his knuckles from the blows he already landed, doesn't feel anything but blind fury--he takes another drink, again sees red like looking through a tunnel and hears the ringing and roaring in his ears. "Filthy little Schwuchtel!" he snarls. "You want to be a little wife so bad? I'll teach you how much fun it is to be a little wife. Then you'll want to be a man." Godfrey watches as he tips the bottle and pours out the beer on the floor, then Georg slams the door shut and stalks toward him. I've already mentioned this incident in Elias Baswitz's entry; I can't go into detail about what Georg does here, but it's awful. Agnes cowers downstairs at first, though when she hears her son start screaming, she gingerly climbs the steps, shaking like a leaf--she wants to help him so badly, but is too afraid of enraging her husband even further. She covers her face and cries until the door to Godfrey's room slams open again and Georg comes stomping out, teeth bared, fist clenched--he hurls the bottle away with a crash and heads for the stairs. Agnes cowers back again, though as he draws close she manages to summon just enough courage to ask in a small voice, "What did you do to Godfrey...?" Georg ignores her--and at last she feels a tiny angry twinge of her own. "Georg--?" she says, louder, as he passes--then, clenching her own fists and nearly yelling at his back, "What did you do to Godfrey--?" Georg halts, bristling--his temper hasn't worn itself out yet, if anything, he's even more enraged than before and doesn't even know why--all he knows is for some inexplicable reason, years of crushed hopes and expectations have collapsed upon him, all his life's hard work and all his family's hard work seems like it's been for nothing, all over one stupid little thing. His brain is so fogged with rage and alcohol that the realization doesn't occur to him--his son's always obeyed--always done everything he can to make him proud--of course Godfrey always planned to carry on the family tradition, same as he did, as it's all he knows. Of course he would have found a girl to marry and have children with, no matter how against his nature, no matter how miserable it would've made him, because that's the way he's always been. And even if his luck continuing the line had been even worse than Georg's and Agnes's, still, he would've tried, because he loves his father. The tiny part deep in the back of Georg's head suspects this. Were he to go to bed, sleep it off, wake sober again in the morning, he'd feel horror and guilt over how far he let it go this time. Maybe, just maybe, it'd finally be just enough to jar him into making a change. But he's never heard Agnes raise her voice before, and it's like a match striking inside. He stops and turns to look back at her. He expects defiance, yet sees only fear; despite summoning her tiny shred of courage, she's still terrified. Georg suddenly thinks of all their years of trying, for a family more than just Godfrey--puny girly disappointing Godfrey, near-barren disappointing Agnes, and most disappointing of all, Georg himself, unable to fix all this--all the generations that went before are howling in his ears at how ruined his family is--and the tiny voice is snuffed out. He sees as if in slow motion, his hand swinging, Agnes's eyes shifting to the side to watch--an echoing CRACK--and she hits the bannister and goes tumbling down the stairs. Agnes lands on the ground floor with a sickening thud, but as Georg descends she manages to slowly push herself up onto hands and knees, gasping for breath. She looks up at him, her cheek already starting to swell, and shakily says, "Georg--" before he reaches her and hauls her to her feet by the front of her dress. "Mutter!" a voice dimly cries before he tosses her again, and she hits the wall. She still doesn't pass out, saying, "Georg--!" again in a wavering voice, so he pulls her up a second time. This goes on for a moment or so--Agnes yelling his name, Georg alternating between tossing her around and punching or kicking her--the more she refuses to just give up, the more enraged he gets. The pathetic one-sided fight goes around the room, jostling furniture, shattering glass, until he hurls her at the floor near the arched entryway into the den. Agnes lands hard with a muffled yelp--Georg gnashes his teeth and clenches his fists and stomps toward her--and then a flicker of movement to Agnes's side makes him stop short. The long barrel of a rifle is pointed right at him. He blinks in surprise--it's his gun, normally kept on the wall in the den just beyond, what's it doing here?--then he blinks again when he sees who's holding it. Godfrey is shaking so hard the rifle jiggles unsteadily in his grasp, and he looks just as petrified as Agnes. "Godfrey--?" Georg says, confused, and Agnes echoes him--"Godfrey?"--a strained note in her voice. She's just as surprised as Georg is. "S-stop hurting her," Godfrey stammers in a small voice, his eye swollen almost shut, his lip split and bruises littering him. "Godfrey," Agnes says again, pushing herself up a little and lifting a hand--an appeal to put down the rifle. Georg sees his son--his puny weakling son--standing his ground for the first time in his life, wielding the family rifle (Godfrey's never shown any fondness for weapons despite Georg trying to teach him), a gun so huge it looks utterly ridiculous in his arms, making him seem even punier trying to hold it aloft and aim at the same time--the recoil alone would likely knock him straight off his feet. There's some sort of irony here--Georg had always wanted Godfrey to toughen up, to be a man, and now here he is with a firearm--yet it's pointed right at Georg himself--and he looks so pathetic with this massive weapon he obviously can hardly use that rather than feel pride that his lesson got through, Georg just feels disgust, as well as his anger deepening. His fists clench again. "What do you think you're doing with that?" he growls; "Piddling Schwuchtel! Put it back!" "Godfrey, give me the rifle, bitte," Agnes implores; her voice grates on Georg's raw nerves and he snarls. "Shut up! Alte Landsau! He's like this because of you always coddling him!" Then to Godfrey: "Give me that gun, you little piss, or I'll make you regret it even more!" He takes a threatening step forward and Godfrey's foot goes back--but aside from that he doesn't budge, and doesn't lower the gun. In a tiny shaking voice, eyes watering, he then says something that confuses the hell out of Georg: "Der Flaschendämon. Let--let him go. I want my Vater back." Georg blinks again, wonders what that means, then immediately stops caring--"Give me that gun, you Schwuchtel, you can't even fire it like a man!"--and he makes a grab but Godfrey jerks back, the barrel swinging. Georg raises his fists and his voice in a fury--"WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU--!!" and hears Agnes, her own voice raised--"Godfrey!"--and Godfrey's wailing voice--"I want my Vater back!"--and then the tiny sober part of his brain remembers, that's right, Godfrey does know how to use the rifle, he taught him, he wanted him to stand up for himself and be a man--right before a brilliant flash blinds him, fire blasts in his chest, and he stumbles backwards, toppling and slamming into the floor. He regains his vision just long enough to see the wide wet eyes of his wife and his son, the rifle barrel smoking, before everything flickers, the darkness rapidly crawls in--like looking down a tunnel again--and instead of red, everything goes black. The aftermath will be recounted in Agnes Klemper's entry (September 1st). [Georg Klemper 2023 [Friday, July 14, 2023, 2:00:40 AM]] |